Silly question... (capes)

What happened to actual capes? Did everyone forget how they were actually made in the last 250 years? lol Not half waist capes or short shoulder capes. I mean full body shoulder to ankle capes that waves in the wind like your about to soar like an eagle.

Comments

If you mean Guild capes, I second that opinion. I miss them a lot and even though GW2's armor sets would be pretty prone to clipping (especially since a lot of people have backpieces), it was a nice way to show your belonging to your guild.

From what I've picked up between WoodenPotatoes and hearsay among the Forums, the issue with putting capes in GW2 are the complex cloth physics they would require, the clipping, and then having it work consistently for multiple body variations across the 5 races without looking funky.

However, I do miss my capes with my Guild emblazoned for all to see. I feel like it really contributed to a sense of Guild pride. Although, aesthetically, I'm not sure the old style of capes would really work as well with the armor styles/art style in the game. I could see capes more in line with the Game of Thrones style working really really well, though, but those may be more cloaks than capes.

A cape that is only a rectangle hanging from one's neck is a sadly nonfunctional sartorial item, not to mention a choking hazard. The whole point of capes and cloaks (besides fashion, in instances where they are worn to make a statement when other garments would do the job more comfortably, in which case they billow and enfold) is to wrap around oneself for protection from the elements. I speak (write?) as one who's done huge amounts of historical costuming and sewn and worn many variations of cloaks from various time periods and media sources.

The GW1 style did work in the context, mostly because the character designs were so stylized anyway. But imo the current game would need something more than a kid's halloween costume fabric rectangle to be visually worth implementing, and yeah, the technical issues with that seem to be very thorny ones.

Capes work in Guild Wars 1 because we only had human characters and our armor "footprints" were pretty standardized. As such, their absence in GW2 was an unfortunate casualty of moving to a MUCH more complicated composite system, and our increasing character art standards. Capes are tricky even when you have finite sets of armor to work off of, but when you go and build a system designed to be highly expandable, making sure capes work with all those possibilities without clipping across the ten different race/gender combinations, well it just became a WAY bigger deal.

@MatthewMedina.5419 said:
Capes work in Guild Wars 1 because we only had human characters and our armor "footprints" were pretty standardized. As such, their absence in GW2 was an unfortunate casualty of moving to a MUCH more complicated composite system, and our increasing character art standards. Capes are tricky even when you have finite sets of armor to work off of, but when you go and build a system designed to be highly expandable, making sure capes work with all those possibilities without clipping across the ten different race/gender combinations, well it just became a WAY bigger deal.

The only solution for this would be to use a real GPU physics engine that naturally drapes the cloth over any player model and existing armor. I guess it could kill performance on most systems especially when hundreds of players stand together in a boss fight. So, not likely a real solution also.

Ascalon Will Prevail!

@MatthewMedina.5419 said:
Capes work in Guild Wars 1 because we only had human characters and our armor "footprints" were pretty standardized. As such, their absence in GW2 was an unfortunate casualty of moving to a MUCH more complicated composite system, and our increasing character art standards. Capes are tricky even when you have finite sets of armor to work off of, but when you go and build a system designed to be highly expandable, making sure capes work with all those possibilities without clipping across the ten different race/gender combinations, well it just became a WAY bigger deal.

What exactly is wrong with having capes clip though? I've always been of the opinion that more player options in terms of appearance is good, and its up to the players, not the programmers, to make sure that they put together something that looks good. Can the same thing not also be done with capes? Simply add them in, accept that there will be lots of clipping with some character models/armor pieces, and then leave it up to players to decide if that is acceptable for them or not? I understand that it would still be a lot of work simply because of the 5 character models would require different rigging models (or 4? I feel like humans and sylvari have the same base model from a skeleton standpoint),but Anet has already accepted that some armor pieces are going to clip on the charr, and live with it, so why should capes be excluded just for clipping?

Oh, no worries. I occasionally gently amend subject lines to make them more visibly relevant. I just tacked on a parenthetical "(capes)" so that folks would better know the subject of the thread at a glance. No harm, no foul, took .4 nanoseconds.

@MatthewMedina.5419 said:
Capes work in Guild Wars 1 because we only had human characters and our armor "footprints" were pretty standardized. As such, their absence in GW2 was an unfortunate casualty of moving to a MUCH more complicated composite system, and our increasing character art standards. Capes are tricky even when you have finite sets of armor to work off of, but when you go and build a system designed to be highly expandable, making sure capes work with all those possibilities without clipping across the ten different race/gender combinations, well it just became a WAY bigger deal.

@MatthewMedina.5419 said:
Capes work in Guild Wars 1 because we only had human characters and our armor "footprints" were pretty standardized. As such, their absence in GW2 was an unfortunate casualty of moving to a MUCH more complicated composite system, and our increasing character art standards. Capes are tricky even when you have finite sets of armor to work off of, but when you go and build a system designed to be highly expandable, making sure capes work with all those possibilities without clipping across the ten different race/gender combinations, well it just became a WAY bigger deal.

There are plenty of things that clip but made it into the game. Back stowed weapons clip w/backpacks and hair, that annoying bow on the back of the norn/human/sylvari female version of the Shadow Assassin outfit clips lots of stuff. That 's my favorite outfit but that bow needs to be removed and tied in the front like the male version. An option to hide stowed weapons would keep clipping to a minimum. We need our capes.

@MatthewMedina.5419 said:
Capes work in Guild Wars 1 because we only had human characters and our armor "footprints" were pretty standardized. As such, their absence in GW2 was an unfortunate casualty of moving to a MUCH more complicated composite system, and our increasing character art standards. Capes are tricky even when you have finite sets of armor to work off of, but when you go and build a system designed to be highly expandable, making sure capes work with all those possibilities without clipping across the ten different race/gender combinations, well it just became a WAY bigger deal.

What exactly is wrong with having capes clip though? I've always been of the opinion that more player options in terms of appearance is good, and its up to the players, not the programmers, to make sure that they put together something that looks good. Can the same thing not also be done with capes? Simply add them in, accept that there will be lots of clipping with some character models/armor pieces, and then leave it up to players to decide if that is acceptable for them or not? I understand that it would still be a lot of work simply because of the 5 character models would require different rigging models (or 4? I feel like humans and sylvari have the same base model from a skeleton standpoint),but Anet has already accepted that some armor pieces are going to clip on the charr, and live with it, so why should capes be excluded just for clipping?

The problem is you might accept that now, having just read about why it's difficult to make capes that don't clip, but not everyone is in that position.

Imagine someone who never visits the forum, doesn't follow the development of the game that closely and just logs in one day to hear you can now buy a cape in the gem store or as a meta-achievement reward. What do you think they're going to expect from an item they have to pay extra for or go out of their way to earn? How would it look to a returning player who quit a few years ago because they were bored or frustrated with the game to come back and find they're now releasing items that sort-of work on some characters, as long as you restrict the armour you can wear with it? Or a new player who feels like they're already taking a chance on a 6 year old game but has been persuaded by friends that it's worth it?

"You can run like a river, Till you end up in the sea,
And you run till night is black, And keep on going in your dreams,
And you know all the long while, It's the journey that you seek,
It's the miles of moving forward, With the wind beneath your wings."

@MatthewMedina.5419 said:
Capes work in Guild Wars 1 because we only had human characters and our armor "footprints" were pretty standardized. As such, their absence in GW2 was an unfortunate casualty of moving to a MUCH more complicated composite system, and our increasing character art standards. Capes are tricky even when you have finite sets of armor to work off of, but when you go and build a system designed to be highly expandable, making sure capes work with all those possibilities without clipping across the ten different race/gender combinations, well it just became a WAY bigger deal.

You know what? I'm sorry to say it, but I'm not going to buy the excuse of "well we don't want clipping". Almost all armor in the game clips with Charr, gets stretched on Charr and Male Norn, and you have instances of Asura toes clipping as well. If clipping were such an issue that it would stop things, then we'd have way more care taken to make sure that armor didn't clip on non human races, but that care wasn't taken, so obviously not clipping is not THAT vital.

The capes clipped in GW1 anyways. In fact there was a fair bit of clipping here and there with hair etc. Did it effect my game play? no. Did I worry about it? no. Did I make a comment to a guidie about it? yes, shrugged my shoulders and went on my merry little way.
It is a shame that capes were ruled out. If the community were happy with some slight graphical issues in favor of having one then I'd be first on the list. After all we are playing Guildwars and capes* were* a thing. Always wanted a gold trim.

@MatthewMedina.5419 said:
Capes work in Guild Wars 1 because we only had human characters and our armor "footprints" were pretty standardized. As such, their absence in GW2 was an unfortunate casualty of moving to a MUCH more complicated composite system, and our increasing character art standards. Capes are tricky even when you have finite sets of armor to work off of, but when you go and build a system designed to be highly expandable, making sure capes work with all those possibilities without clipping across the ten different race/gender combinations, well it just became a WAY bigger deal.

What exactly is wrong with having capes clip though? I've always been of the opinion that more player options in terms of appearance is good, and its up to the players, not the programmers, to make sure that they put together something that looks good. Can the same thing not also be done with capes? Simply add them in, accept that there will be lots of clipping with some character models/armor pieces, and then leave it up to players to decide if that is acceptable for them or not? I understand that it would still be a lot of work simply because of the 5 character models would require different rigging models (or 4? I feel like humans and sylvari have the same base model from a skeleton standpoint),but Anet has already accepted that some armor pieces are going to clip on the charr, and live with it, so why should capes be excluded just for clipping?

The problem is you might accept that now, having just read about why it's difficult to make capes that don't clip, but not everyone is in that position.

Imagine someone who never visits the forum, doesn't follow the development of the game that closely and just logs in one day to hear you can now buy a cape in the gem store or as a meta-achievement reward. What do you think they're going to expect from an item they have to pay extra for or go out of their way to earn? How would it look to a returning player who quit a few years ago because they were bored or frustrated with the game to come back and find they're now releasing items that sort-of work on some characters, as long as you restrict the armour you can wear with it? Or a new player who feels like they're already taking a chance on a 6 year old game but has been persuaded by friends that it's worth it?

Again, how is that any different from almost all armor clipping with charr feet/horns, and some armor clipping with asuras? It already happens. Even legendary armor has clipping problems. Its not like this is a problem that wouldn't exist until capes are implemented. It already exists for the non-human races. So theres no harm in putting capes in and just accepting that they will have similar levels of clipping

@SoulSin.5682 said:
If the point is showing off guild symbols on character back, Randon ideas:

A guild version of the [Banners of Dynastic Reckoning]

We could have an iten like the [Inquest Device] showing a hologran of your guild symbol.

Shoulders with guild symbols

Due to assuran technology, the cape could be a sort of hologran that floats freely behind the character. So the clipping is lore friendly

The Commander of the pact could learn to flutter his cape on the wind like Chrom of Fire Emblem, as long the cape is flying, there is no clipping on the armor!

It doesn't have to be guild emblems on the back...a cape with a nice trim line that can be color changed or a neato pattern that can be color changed or anything as long as its in cape form and waves beautifully in the wind or moving be shweetness.